Science Spies

Michal Goleniewski, cover name Sniper, was one of the most important spies of the early Cold War. For two and a half years at the end of the 1950s, as a Lt. Colonel at the top of Poland’s espionage service, he smuggled more than 5,000 top-secret Soviet bloc intelligence and military documents, as well as 160 rolls of microfilm, out from behind the Iron Curtain. In January 1961, he abandoned his wife and children and made a dramatic defection across divided Berlin with his East German mistress to the safety of American territory.

In Operation Whisper, Barnes Carr tells the true story of the most effective Soviet spy couple in America, a pair who vanished under the FBI's nose only to turn up posing as rare book dealers in London, where they continued their atomic spying. The Cohens were talented, dedicated, worldly spies - an urbane, jet-set couple loyal to their service and their friends. Most people they met seemed to think they represented the best of America. The Soviets certainly thought so.

The United States has just launched the most powerful weapon in history - a missilelaunching satellite called "Thor's Hammer" that can strike anywhere on the planet in seconds. The world's other major superpowers, Russia and China, are rocked by America's development, and they scramble to respond by gaining control of the seas.

The best-selling author of the classic Mars trilogy and The Years of Rice and Salt returns with a riveting new trilogy of cutting-edge science, international politics, and the real-life ramifications of global warming as they are played out in our nation's capital - and in the daily lives of those at the center of the action. Hauntingly realistic, here is a novel of the near future that is inspired by scientific facts already making headlines. BONUS AUDIO: Includes an exclusive introduction by author Kim Stanley Robinson.

The galaxy is mired in a cold war between two superpowers, the Illyrican Empire and the Commonwealth. Thrust between this struggle are Simon Kovalic, the Commonwealth's preeminent spy, and Kyle Rankin, a lowly soldier happily scrubbing toilets on Sabaea, a remote and isolated planet. However, Kyle Rankin is a lie. His real name is Eli Brody, and he fled his home world of Caledonia years ago. Simon Kovalic knows Caledonia is a lit fuse hurtling towards detonation.

When a bomb explodes in the bustling Commonwealth capital city of Salaam, responsibility is quickly claimed by an extremist independence movement. But after a former comrade, an ex-spy with his own agenda, is implicated in the attack, Simon Kovalic and his team of covert operatives are tasked with untangling the threads of a dangerous plot that could have implications on a galactic scale. And the deeper Kovalic digs, the more he'll uncover a maze of secrets, lies, and deception that may force even the most seasoned spy to question his own loyalties.

Published in 1948, this cautionary tale follows a lone protagonist who struggles under the rule of a repressive totalitarian government. Set in a future version of England, called Airstrip One, the novel is famous for its imagined language that conjures a cruelly cynical authoritarian regime. One of the most popular novels in the English language, it is part political thriller and part science fiction, and it established the word Orwellian to describe official deception, unwarranted surveillance, and revisionist history by the state.

Personable, good looking, and a whiz at physics, graduate student Allan Diffenduffer "Duff" Bogan has a bright future ahead of him. But while staying at the home of an invalid widow in Florida, Duff makes a discovery that freezes his blood: a cache of uranium hidden in the locked closet of a fellow guest. The FBI is initially skeptical, but Duff knows all too well what his findings portend.

An inspiring true story, perfect for fans of Hidden Figures, about an American woman who pioneered codebreaking in WWI and WWII but was only recently recognized for her extraordinary contributions. Elizebeth Smith Friedman had a rare talent for spotting patterns and solving puzzles. These skills led her to become one of the top cryptanalysts in America during both World War I and World War II.

Book two of the Spyglass Sisterhood finds Ellie, Rachel, Kiara, and Alyssa back for another adventure. When the spyglass reveals an image of Rachel walking a dog, she knows it's pure fantasy. Her overprotective moms would never let her walk a dog alone, much less own one! To the dismay of her Spyglass Sisters, Rachel would rather avoid the whole thing altogether. However, she can't avoid it for long when a lost dog follows her home.

Twelve-year-old Ellie is ordinary. Absolutely, positively ordinary. Then her dad's latest community project makes their whole ritzy town, including all of Ellie's friends, turn against them. Tired of being ostracized, Ellie's family moves to the other side of the state to live in a rickety 100-year-old house complete with a turret—and Ellie swears off friendship forever. That is until Ellie explores the turret and discovers an old-fashioned telescope—a spyglass.

German by birth, British by naturalization, Communist by conviction, Klaus Fuchs was a fearless Nazi resister, a brilliant scientist, and an infamous spy. He was convicted of espionage by Britain in 1950 for handing over the designs of the plutonium bomb to the Russians and has gone down in history as one of the most dangerous agents in American and British history. He put an end to America's nuclear hegemony and single-handedly heated up the Cold War. But, was Klaus Fuchs really evil?

In an alternate society that values law and truth above all else, Laszlo Ratesic is a 19-year veteran of the Speculative Service. He lives in the Golden State, a nation standing where California once did, a place where like-minded Americans retreated after the erosion of truth and the spread of lies made public life and governance impossible. In the Golden State, knowingly contradicting the truth is the greatest crime - and stopping those crimes is Laz's job. In its service, he is one of the few individuals permitted to harbor untruths, to "speculate" on what might have happened.

The leafy Avenue de Foch, one of the most exclusive residential streets in Nazi-occupied France, was Paris' hotbed of daring spies, murderous secret police, amoral informers, and Vichy collaborators. So when American physician Sumner Jackson, who lived with his wife and young son, Phillip, at Number 11, found himself drawn into the Liberation network of the French resistance, he knew the stakes were impossibly high.

China's leaders watched the riots and looting that tore through America during the summer of 2020 carefully. The events of 1/6/21 confirmed what China's leaders had long suspected: that America is divided. World War 3: The Dragon Rises depicts how a Chinese EMP (electromagnetic pulse) weapon attack upon America would cripple the United States. China's leaders also unleash the world's first super-soldiers upon America in World War 3: The Dragon Rises. With altered DNA, these super-soldiers utilize the chaos that has gripped America after the electricity goes out.

If the world as we know it ended tomorrow, would you survive? When the United States suffers a major socioeconomic collapse, a power vacuum sweeps the globe. A newly radicalized Islamic government rises to power in Indonesia, invading the Philippines, East Timor, Papua New Guinea, and finally Northern Australia. No longer protected by American military interests, Australia must repel this invasion alone.

Between 1939 and 1945, more than 70 Allied men and women were convicted - mostly in secret trials - of working to help Nazi Germany win the war. In the same period, hundreds of British Fascists were also interned without trial on specific and detailed evidence that they were spying for, or working on behalf of, Germany. Collectively, these men and women were part of a little-known Fifth Column: traitors who committed crimes including espionage, sabotage, communicating with enemy intelligence agents, and attempting to cause disaffection among Allied troops.

Living among the Sachakan rebels, Lorkin does his best to learn about them and their unique magic. But the Traitors are reluctant to trade their knowledge for the Healing they so desperately want, and while he assumes they fear revealing their existence to the world, there are hints they have bigger plans. Sonea searches for the rogue, knowing that Cery cannot avoid assassination forever, but the rouge's influence over the city's underworld is far greater than she feared. His only weakness is the loss of his mother, now locked away in the Lookout.

This extraordinary fantasy teams together two delightful characters: Varloo, from the secret underground Druid caves known as Hek, and Dougie, from the lands above this civilization, suburban California. These two unlikely heroes realize that a plan to build a development on the land above the caves must be stopped in order to preserve their existence.

Hannah Stander is a consultant for the FBI - a futurist who helps the agency with cases that feature demonstrations of bleeding-edge technology. It's her job to help them identify unforeseen threats: hackers, AIs, genetic modification, anything that in the wrong hands could harm the homeland. Hannah is in an airport, waiting to board a flight home to see her family, when she receives a call from Agent Hollis Copper. "I've got a cabin full of over a thousand dead bodies," he tells her. Whether those bodies are all human, he doesn't say.